The elephant in the room has been mentioned somewhere else these days: severe lack of planning and crumbling infrastructures.
Remarkably how ne of the few non-partisan issues on the table goes under the radar time and time again. Tongue in cheek, we might think only polemic issue get the attention of the public.
There is also the notion of national pride. We built our infrastructural base earlier than pretty much anyone else in the world, but we don't invest consistently on them anymore. Today our roads, dams etc. pale in comparison with any western country's but it seems like it's an affront to our national pride to acknowledge that.
Houston is ill prepared to face any kind of emergency like this one, and only the bravery and tenacity of the people is preventing a humanitarian disaster in the scale that would keep us awake at night. That's not the American way: planning, preparing and executing is. The sooner we start taking this leap the better.
Which other city in the US can handle 40 or 50 inches of rain, and 15 trillion gallons of water, within a one week timespan? That's as much rain as most US cities get in a year.
This is not the fault of poor planning or poor infrastructure in Houston. It's freak weather event that shouldn't just be given partisan rhetoric.
Probably none, but it's not a matter of what city could survive unscathed, it's a matter of what city has minimized the consequences. Houston has allowed for basically unfettered growth constraining their bayou's and preventing flooding infrastructure to be built. Hopefully Houston uses this disaster to rezone and allow for appropriate land management.
Similar freak weather happened 16 years ago in Houston (Allison, $5 billion in damage). It took Houston at least 5 years to recover then. It's pretty clear now that between the upgrades in water management after Allison and the addition of another 2 million residents since then, Houston wasn't as well prepared as it should be for another Allison, much less a Harvey.
In the past two consecutive years, Houston has experienced significant urban flooding due to what are now "typical" big rains. But even 1-year storm events like those were too much for the city's drainage system to handle. The city fathers must be aware that flooding has become a chronic problem.
The lesson from Katrina was that New Orleans' levees were undersized and unable to withstand overflow, leading to catastrophic flooding, and the destruction of homes not built to a modern flood-resistant design standard.
I think the lesson from Harvey was not that Houston has a severe drainage problem, but without significant upgrades, the problem is going to guarantee more ongoing and occasionally catastrophic floods in the very near future.
Remarkably how ne of the few non-partisan issues on the table goes under the radar time and time again. Tongue in cheek, we might think only polemic issue get the attention of the public.
There is also the notion of national pride. We built our infrastructural base earlier than pretty much anyone else in the world, but we don't invest consistently on them anymore. Today our roads, dams etc. pale in comparison with any western country's but it seems like it's an affront to our national pride to acknowledge that.
Houston is ill prepared to face any kind of emergency like this one, and only the bravery and tenacity of the people is preventing a humanitarian disaster in the scale that would keep us awake at night. That's not the American way: planning, preparing and executing is. The sooner we start taking this leap the better.